Final Destination 4
by Riddl3MeThis
Summary: When Caroline Montgomery got invited to the coolest party of the year that just happened to be on a boat the only thing she was nervous about was if people would like her outfit. Little did she know that the boat would blow up. Reviews make me smile!


"Caroline!!! _Caroline__!__!__!_"

Fourteen year old Caroline Montgomery turned her head to see her best friend, Juliet Ryan waving at her from the end of the dock, "C'mon, Car, the boat's leaving in 5!"

Caroline waved back at Juliet to signal that she was coming, and took a deep breath. Tonight was the night of the biggest party in town. Michael Dubronte had gotten his family's GIGANTIC boat just for the occasion, and only the really cool seniors, juniors, and sophmores were invited. Caroline knew that one of the only reasons she was invited was because she was friends with Juliet. It wasn't that she was a total loser or anything, but her family had moved to her this year and she was still the "new kid" by most people's judgement.

A few more deep breaths and she was ready to go. Quickly, Caroline smoothed her hair and double-checked her teeny-tiny bikini that Juliet had _insisted_ she wear. _Just remember, you're Caroline Montgomery, sexy, young, mysterious new girl. Tonight is going to be your night! _She'd been going over that mantra since she'd gotten out of bed that morning, but she had yet to believe it.

Slowly, Caroline began to walk down the dock. The entire dock was reserved for the Dubronte's, and disregarded plastic cups and long-forgotten snacks littered the wood. There had been a pre-party, but Juliet had promised that it would be lame.

"HEY!! MISSY!!!"

Caroline jumped and looked up to see an old man scowling at her. "Are-are you talking to me?" she stammered. "No, I'm talking to one of the other little girls standing on the dock," he laughed at his own stupid joke for a minute and then quickly twisted his face into a scowl that made Caroline cringe, "Get on the boat; we're pulling the gangplank in and departing!". Caroline sprinted to the boat and up the gangplank onto the ship. She now found herself standing on a very small deck. Directly ahead of her was a large wooden door that led to the ships' main cabin (an area that she was planning on staying away from; Juliet had told her that the cabin was always reserved as the "sex room") and a set of stairs that, from what she could remember about what Juliet had told her about the ship, led to the main deck; the party floor where everyone hung out. Judging from the loud music and laughter coming from that direction, Caroline assumed that she remembered correctly and bolted up the stairs, eager to reach the top. But when she did, she froze.

"Holy shit," she murmured, surveying the scene before her. The boat was big, yes, but she had realized that just by staring at it from across the dock. But no, it was the hundreds of flashing lights, giant kegs, mountains of pizza boxes, and the _pool_ (with a _water slide__!_) that had her gaping.

"I know, right?"

Caroline whipped around to see a Alex Reminsen, a very cute junior, standing behind her. "I, oh, uhm, you scared me," Caroline inwardly cursed herself for not having anything better to say. "Hey, Lexy, don't hog the hot tail!" Mario Holverstein, Class-A douche, called over. For some reason, girls seemed to flock to him even though he was a selfish jerk who obviously didn't care for other peoples' feelings. For Caroline's first two months at school he had referred to her only as "new tail" or, like he called most girls, "hot tail".

One of the girls that was sitting with Mario-Rachel, was it?-shot Caroline a _get lost!_ look, and Caroline took that as her cue to leave. Without another glance at Alex, she set off with a new mission: find Juliet! True, she did have other friends at this party, but none of them were as... well, to put it bluntly, popular as Juliet was. In her hurry to find her friend, she didn't even see the couple making out on the floor in front of her. She did, however, realize that they were there when she tripped over them and crashed into the deck.

"Watch it, skank!" the girl in the couple snapped, and Caroline thanked God that the music was loud enough so that most people didn't hear her words. Unfortunately, loud music didn't obstruct their vision, and most people who had seen were chuckling.

"Sorry," Caroline mumbled to the couple, who she could now identify as Sam Morisson and Janel Humstead. "Hey, don' worry 'bout it, babe," Sam slurred, and Caroline could tell he was drunk.

Shakily, she pulled herself to her feet and put on a smile for the crowd watching her. _Nice one, slick,_ she thought to herself, _Not even ten minutes in and you manage to embarrass yourself in front of **everyone**!_

She sped away from that area towards the pool. Once there, she grabbed a napkin off of a mini-refreshments table and sat down on an empty deck chair to try and stop her knee from bleeding. She must have scraped it when she'd hit the deck. Caroline sat in silence for the next few minutes with the napkin pressed to her knee, before loud cheers jerked her out of her daze.

"Whoo-hoo! We're headin' out to sea!" someone shouted, and everyone cheered louder. Suddenly the boat lurched, and everyone shrieked. A few people even fell over. Caroline just rolled her eyes. As a kid, her family had gone on dozens of cruises so she knew that sometimes the boat lurched when it started sailing.

With a sigh, she stood and made her way over to the nearest garbage and deposited the now-bloody napkin. _Ick_. Luckily her knee had stopped bleeding, and it didn't hurt to walk so all was well. Except... it didn't feel that way. Caroline walked swiftly over to the rails of the ship and looked out at the ocean. The sun had set about half an hour ago and the dark sky made the water look black. Caroline felt nervous. The waves crashing into the boat seemed much bigger than they had a minute ago, and the cool breeze was turning into a heavy wind that was making the hairs on Caroline's neck stand up.

Suddenly a hand wrapped around her arm. "AH!" she yelped and yanked her hand away.

"Chill, sweets, its just me!"

Caroline turned to see her classmate, Stephanie _Steph_ Ziegler standing there. Caroline didn't really like Steph. She was pretty, popular, and dating the most popular guy at Rodman High. But she was also bitchy, self-centered, and completely controlling. Somehow, whenever she was around Steph, Caroline found herself completely without a backbone. Normally she just gave into whatever it was Steph wanted, whether it was playing spin-the-bottle at Dennis Alham's party or letting her copy their math worksheet from the night before. "Uhm, what's up?" Caroline asked and placed her hands on her bare stomach self-consciously.

Steph threw back her long pale-blonde hair, and smiled at her, "Justin has been eyeing you since you got here!" Caroline frowned. Was that supposed to mean something? She had showed up five minutes ago, and throughout all five of her months at Rodman High she'd only talked to Justin once.

"Oh, okay," Caroline looked over Steph's shoulder at Justin, who was laughing as an attractive blonde whispered into his ear. "He looks busy," she told Steph flatly. "Not for long," Steph grinned at her mischievously. Before Caroline had a chance to ask her what she was talking about, Steph was pulling her over towards Justin. "Oh, Justin," she called out. Justin turned his head and lifted one arm in greeting. "Sweets, could you fetch us all some drinks?" Steph asked the blonde and shot her a megawatt smile. "Uhm, I was kind of talking to-"

"Please?" Steph's smile grew wider.

"But-"

"Please?"

"I was-" the blonde, whose name Caroline couldn't remember for the life of her, sputtered again. _Oh, God, just give it up already,_ Caroline thought and shot the blonde an apologetic look. But the girl just glared at her, snapped, "Fine," and quickly walked away.

"Here's the hottie you've been trying to get at all semester,"

_Wow, very subtle,_ Steph, Caroline would have grinned if this hadn't been the second-most embarrassing thing to happen to her that night. Justin looked equally embarrassed and stammered, "Uhm, er, Steph, I..."

Thankfully, they were saved by a loud shout of, "HEY! THEY'RE CRASHERS!"

All three of their heads turned simultaneously to look at a small group of people, all of them wearing black, sprinting out of the "sex room". "People crash every year," Steph shrugged her shoulders and shook her head at the crashers in disgust, "People from the football team will catch them. Might even throw them overboard!"

Caroline frowned in disgust at the fact that Steph sounded _excited_ about people being thrown out to sea. There was a loud scream, and Caroline turned to see a group of girls being pushed into the pool by two crashers. "Ugh," Steph grabbed Caroline and Justin, "Come on. Let's head to one of the other cabins before it gets violent,"

Caroline shrugged and followed Steph, but Justin stayed put. "I'm gonna see if I can help catch them," Steph just shot an admonishing glare at him and pulled Caroline towards another set of stairs. As they started climbing the stairs, Caroline glanced back to see Justin and another guy pummeling one of the male crashers. The boy's hood had fallen off, revealing him to be David Wang, a quiet "goth" guy that was in Caroline's AP English class. As Justin's hand collided with David's face for the upteenth time, Caroline winced and let out a muffled whimper. Steph turned to stare at her and followed her gaze to the fight, "Don't worry about it, they deserve it. After all, they knew this party was invitation only,"

All the same, Caroline couldn't help feeling nauseous as she followed Steph through another set of doors. This room was already occupied by a few people and most of them smiled and waved. Caroline recognized Matt Osgood and Demi Lange on the couch, and she _thought_ that the boy by the TV was Bryce Smithsonian, Steph's boyfriend, but she wasn't sure. The other two boys she recognized vaguely from passing them in the halls at school, but she couldn't recall their names. They were sitting on the floor, with a pretty girl in between them, who in the dark looked a bit like...

"Juliet!" Caroline smiled brightly at her friend. Juliet turned to look at her and waved one hand, "Heyy, Car. Where've you been?"

But before Caroline could reply, there was a loud bang and the door swung open to reveal Mario and Sam, supporting a passed out Janel in between them. "What happened to..." Demi raised her eyebrows and pointed Janel.

"One of those fuckin' crashers knocked 'er into the wall," Sam was red in the face, and Caroline couldn't tell if it was just the alcohol or if he was genuinely upset. Everyone was quiet for a minute before Steph spoke up, "More like you started going at it and it was just a bit too rough for Janel,"

On accident, Caroline let out a loud, "HA!". A few other people chuckled, but Sam just swore and grew redder. Luckily, at that exact moment Janel started moaning and Sam immediately dropped to her side. "You okay, baby?" Janel looked at him and smiled, "Mmmm-hhhmmmm... that was amazing, Sam!"

Once again everyone burst out laughing. "Shit, you were right, Steph!" the boy by the TV, who Caroline could now tell for sure was Bryce, laughed, and moved to hug Steph. But surprisingly, Steph batted him away. "What are you doing in here, with _her_?" she narrowed her eyes and stared straight at Juliet. "I was just waiting for you to come up here," Bryce ran a hand through his hair, grinned, and whispered something in Steph's ear that made her reply, "We'll see,"

"Hey," one of the boys by Juliet said, "there're crashers here?" Caroline nodded and the boys' face lit up like she had just told him Santa Claus actually _was_ real. "Sweet!" he high-fived the other boy and leapt up, "Let's go check it out!" after they were gone, the doors swung closed with another loud _**BANG**__**!**_ and everyone jumped, and then laughed.

Caroline took the boys exit in stride and sat down next to Juliet. She was about to tell Juliet all about the crashers when, with another bang, the door was flung open. Standing there were two crashers, both girls. One had long obviously dyed blonde hair, and the other had very short dark brown hair. The brunette, Caroline knew was Stacy-Lynn Meyers, and the blonde was a senior that was known for hooking up with their English teacher and getting him fired.

"Hey," Steph called to them, "Get out!" The blonde girl threw back her head and laughed, while the brunette frowned and whispered to her, "Ari, it's nine to two!"

"Your name's Ari?" Caroline blurted. Everyone turned to stare at Caroline, but before the girl could answer there was _another_ bang. But this time the door was still closed. "What was-" Juliet began, but she never got to finish her sentence. At that exact moment there was another loud bang, but this time screams and the sound of wood splintering followed it. Everyone ran over and open the door to see what had happened, but all they could see was the ships' decorative sail that had been knocked loose (most likely by one of the fighting crashers) and was blocking their view of the main deck.

There are many theories as to what happened, but what the eleven teenagers in that cabin guessed was as close to the truth as anyone got.

"Sounds like something fell through the deck," Matt murmured, and Caroline found herself agreeing.

•••

What had happened was this. No one had realized that the party crashers had brought boxes of cherry bombs to throw at the drunken party goers. As the fight raged on between the two groups, one beaten crasher had grabbed a cherry bomb out of his pocket and shoved it into his attackers' ear and had lit the fuse before anyone even realized what had happened. Unfortunately, this crasher happened to have the majority of his groups' cherry bomb supply, all of which had been knocked loose when he had pulled one out of his pocket. Now, even with a burst eardrum, his attacker wasn't about to let this loser get away (after lighting a cherry bomb in his ear!), and he lunged quickly at the crasher. As you can probably guess, the boys' judgement was heavily skewed. He was in an incredible amount of pain, as his eardrum had just blown up, but all of the alcohol he had consumed beforehand was numbing most of the pain and fueling his anger.

Once he had a hold of the crasher, he slammed him into the most painful-looking object he could see: the stack of backup kegs. When he slammed the crasher into the kegs, it did two things; first of all, it caused the crashers' lighter to be punctured by a sharp corner of one of the kegs. And second of all, it caused the stack of kegs (that were stacked three by three) to all fall over. Now, the fault of what happened next can be spread between many people. The crasher, for blowing up a boys ear. His attacker, for beating him up in the first place and then slamming him into the kegs. Michael Dubronte, for getting so many damned kegs and putting them so _close_ to the pool. Hell, you can even blame the older Dubrontes for not checking the wood around their pool to make sure that none of it was _old_ or in danger of _collapsing_. And you can definitely blame the builders of the ship for putting the pool exactly two floors above the engine room... but really, how were they supposed to know at the time that a stack of kegs might just fall on that particular spot of wood and fall straight through it, and through the main cabins' floor, into the engine room, bringing all of the pool water and many party goers and crashers with it?

Because that was exactly what had happened. And, again, unfortunately, the particular crasher whose lighter was leaking lighter fluid all over everyone and everything was one of the people who fell with the kegs. When the dozens of people fell into the engine room, one girl in particular was wearing very pointy high heels that happened to cut two electrical wires that fed the boat most of its' electricity for lights and music and such. But that was nothing compared to the fact that her other heel had actually _punctured_ the engine, causing gasoline to leak out all over. And causing the electrical wires to spark. And causing them to light the fluid-covered crasher on fire. And causing him to light the gasoline on fire. And causing the engine room to explode and cut the cruise ship neatly in half.

•••

"What happened to the music?" Demi asked, frowning.

"I don't know." Caroline was frowning also. _What the hell was happening?_ People were still screaming, but at least the sound of wood splintering was gone. Juliet stepped out of the cabin and reached towards the sail with one arm and began to push it back, "If... only we... could... see!" She pushed on the sail harder with each word as if to emphasize her point. Just as Caroline was reaching out to help her, the boat tipped backwards. Well, actually, _half_ of the boat tipped backwards and _half_ of the boat tipped forwards. Juliet was standing on the half that tipped forwards, and she was flung _through_ the sail and down the stairs where she tumbled head over heels until she hit one of the ships' guard rails and came to a stop. Caroline moved to call out to her, but Juliet's head was sticking out at such a completely wrong angle that even from a distance Caroline could tell she was dead.

"Oh...God," she whispered as tears came to her eyes, "Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my-" another lurch of the boat cut her off, and the cabin tipped further back. Caroline stumbled and tried to catch her balance on the lopsided floor, but her legs shot out from under her and she fell. The second she hit the ground she began to slide towards the opposite wall, but before she could get too far Matt caught her hand. "Holy shit, hold on, hold on," he was saying even though the cabin was tipping further backwards by the second. All of the couches and chairs slid into the wall and ripped a giant hole in the wall.

Caroline couldn't help it, she screamed. And she wasn't the only one. Steph was crying as she clung to Bryce, who was hanging onto the door to keep from falling. Demi was clinging to the TV with Ari, and Mario was digging his hands into the carpet to keep from slipping. Janel let out a loud scream as she slipped out of Sam's hand and fell towards the hole in the wall. Luckily, she missed it and hit the actual wall, where she lay sobbing. "JANEL!" Sam shouted. He was miraculously the only one left still standing as he hung onto an open porthole to make sure he didn't fall. Stacy-Lynn was hanging onto his ankles for dear life.

Suddenly, there was a groaning noise, and to everyones' horror the TV broke off of the wall bringing Demi and Ari with it. It fell directly into Janel, crushing her instantly, and then it exploded, setting Ari and Demi on fire.

"DEMI!" Matt cried, and as he let out an anguished sob, he released his grip on Caroline. As she fell towards the flames, Caroline screamed and tried in vain to dig her fingers into the carpet as Mario had done. It slowed her slide a bit and gave her a chance to literally scratch her way through the floor. Her nails felt like they were on fire, _but hey_, she thought to herself, _it's much better than your whole body_.

"I gotcha, Janel!" Sam, still too drunk to make a rational decision, had let go of the porthole and was falling towards the fire. "SAM YOU IDIOT! SHE'S ALREADY DEAD!" Caroline shouted, but it was too late. As Sam tumbled towards the burning wall (which was now more like the burning floor), Stacy-Lynn, who had been hanging onto him, grabbed onto a banner that had been hanging on the ceiling. The banner that had once read DUMONTE was now mostly covered in soot from the explosion. Now the only letters showing were D, T, and E, and as the sweltering heat of the fire caused Caroline to squint, it kind of looked like the banner said DIE.

Somehow, Sam completely missed the fire when he fell and instead fell through the hole and into the churning water. He didn't resurface. With a shudder, their half of the boat began to shake violently. It was about to sink. Caroline knew that they were incredibly lucky that the boat hadn't already sunk, and that when it went down it was going to go down fast.

"AHHHHHH-" Stacy-Lynn's scream was cut off by a choking noise, and when Caroline turned to look at her she almost screamed herself. The banner that Stacy-Lynn had been hanging onto had somehow ended up around her throat when the boat had been shaking. "Someone help-" Caroline's plea was but off by another horrific sight. The large Trophy Bass that the Dubontes had mounted above the door that Bryce and Steph were hanging onto had become unhinged, and smacked Bryce in the head as it fell. He was instantly knocked unconscious, and dragged Steph with him as he fell backwards into the fire. Caroline sobbed as Steph screamed bloody murder while she died.

"Oh no! Stacy!" Caroline had forgotten completely about her, but when she looked over at the girl she saw that she was far too late. Stacy-Lynn's now lifeless eyes were staring vacantly and her now blue tongue was hanging out of her mouth. "Oh my God, we're going to die!" she sobbed, loudly. Mario started to shout something at her, but a second later a piece of plaster broke off of the wall and jettisoned him through the stomach. Caroline screamed. And screamed, and screamed, and screamed. She was going to die. _Fuck_. She was going to fucking _die_! "Hold on!" Matt called to her "I think we can make it if we just hold on!"

But not even ten seconds after he shouted his advice to Caroline, the boat shuddered and sunk, bringing Caroline and Matt underwater before she could even respond back to him. The entire left wall collapsed on top of Matt a split second before he hit the water. It knocked him unconscious and, like Bryce, he died without even knowing what was happening.

Tears of pain as the water stung her eyes and of fear sprung to her eyes. This was it. _I__'m going to die._ In vain, Caroline tried to kick towards the surface, but the suction the cabin was creating as it sunk was simply too much for her. _No, no, this can't be the end! It can't!_ But even as the words ran through her mind, blackness crept around the edges of her vision. Her lungs burned with the need of oxygen, and it became harder and harder to keep swimming. The water pressure increased as she sunk, and her eardrums felt like they were going to burst. She needed to breath. Caroline knew it was stupid, that she was underwater and there was no oxygen here, but in her mind it all made sense. I'll just take one small breath... just one. Slowly, she parted her lips and sucked in a lungfull of water. It sent her into a coughing fit and caused her to suck in even more water. Oh, God. Caroline had never thought that drowning would hurt so much. Her body was trying to get her to throw the water back up, but to do that she needed air. Her lungs felt much heavier than they should have, and her eardrums were throbbing with every slow beat of her heart. She couldn't think, couldn't move, could only suck in more water and pray that it would end... that she'd finally just die. Please, let it end. Let me die. Let me die. Finally, someone heard her wishes, and the darkness that had been ebbing around her vision covered her completely.

•••

And then, Caroline could see again. Not only that, but she was standing. She wasn't under water. Her lungs didn't feel full of water, her eardrums didn't hurt, she wasn't even wet.

"What the fuck?" that was the only thing that she could think of. She was standing in the cabin... except... it wasn't all ruined.

"Hey! There're crashers here?" Caroline turned her head sharply to stare at a boy sitting on the floor... next to Juliet... just like before. "What the _fuck_?" she muttered again. "Sweet! Let's go check it out!" the boy was now saying to the other boy, and before Caroline could figure out what was happening, they were gone. In horror, she looked around the room. Matt and Demi were on the couch, Bryce was hugging Steph, Sam was holding a disoriented Janel, Mario was leering at her, and Juliet was on the floor staring at her with a worried expression on her face. "You okay, Car?" she asked, but before Caroline could tell her no, the door banged open to reveal Ari and Stacy-Lynn. Caroline slowly began to put 2 and 2 together. And screamed.

"WE HAVE TO GET OFF THIS BOAT!!!"

Everyone stared at her like she was crazy. "What?" Steph asked, but Caroline was already running around the cabin, looking for a way out. When the snapped shut, Caroline burst into tears. She was not going to die. She was not going to die. On the wall that, the last time Caroline had seen it, had been on fire, there was a door. She wrenched it open to find a very small black deck, and beyond it was the open sea. She could just barely make out the dock far off in the distance. "COME ON! WE HAVE TO GET OFF OF THIS BOAT!" she screamed at the others, but they were still looking at her like she had lost it. Seeing that they weren't going to listen, she grabbed the closest person, who happened to be Demi, and shoved her towards the door. Fear and adrenaline helped her to push the squirming girl out the door, and over the guard rails. With a loud splash, Demi hit the water.

"What the fuck?" Matt yelled, and ran over to the guard rails. Caroline waited until he was leaning far over them before she pushed with all of her might. Matt was a lot stronger and heavier than his girlfriend, but he was already leaning so far over that his own weight helped to bring him down. "You've lost it!" Steph was shouting, while Juliet asked, "What's wrong, Car?!"

"I'm leaving!" Janel declared loudly. She shrugged off Sam and pushed open the door. But the decorative sail was already blocking it. "THERE'S NO TIME! I SAW THE BOAT EXPLODE! THE MUSIC IS GOING TO STOP AND THEN THE BOAT'S GOING TO SINK!!!"

Another loud bang sounded, followed by the sound of splintering wood. Bryce and Mario looked sort of like they believed her. "Oh, God, what was that?" Ari asked. There was no time to convince them. Caroline grabbed the next person, Stacy-Lynn, and easily dragged her over to the deck and threw her off the ship. Stacy was tiny, and she didn't put up much of a fight.

"HEY!" Janel screamed, and Caroline turned to see Bryce carrying her over to the door. He leaned over the guard rails and kindly placed her in the water, as she was probably still disoriented from when she passed out, or was knocked out, or whatever. "Hey, dude, not cool!" Sam shouted, and followed his girlfriend in with a canon-ball. "Oh, come on, Bryce, you don't really believe her, do you?" but even as Steph spoke, the sounds of screams grew louder from the main deck. "I believe her," Ari said. She was staring at Caroline with her dark brown eyes as if she was sizing her up, but nonetheless she followed Sam and dove off the boat in an almost graceful manner.

"You're all fucking crazy!" Steph screamed, and she, Mario, and Juliet almost unconsciously moved together. "Please, please, I saw you all die! You're all going to die if you stay on here!" she was sobbing now. Juliet stepped away from Mario and Steph, and moved towards Caroline, "If I humor you and get off the boat, will you shut up?" she sighed. Caroline didn't even care that Juliet was being a bitch, she just nodded gratefully. Juliet sighed again, walked over to one of the couches, and lifted the cushions. Underneath was a bunch of lifejackets. Juliet grabbed one and put it on before she walked out of the door and slid into the water. "HAPPY?" she called to Caroline, who didn't pay her any attention.

She grabbed a bunch of the lifejackets and threw them overboard, too, to the people that were floating in the water. "PUT THESE ON!" When she returned to the cabin, Bryce was strapping a life jacket onto a protesting Steph. "No, no, no! I don't want to get in the water! Bryce, we are over. Done! We're not-" she stopped yelling.

Caroline yelped. The music had stopped. "Oh no. We need to get off now!" she shrieked, and grabbed a life jacket. Her hands were shaking so badly that she couldn't even snap the straps together. Bryce lifted Steph, and together they jumped off the boat. Caroline stared at Mario, "You have about twenty seconds to get off the boat before all hell breaks loose," and with that, she ran to the guard rails, and launched herself over.

The second she resurfaced, she heard a second splash. Caroline opened her eyes to see Mario's face right in hers. "I cannot fucking believe you got us all to leave! If this is some kind of joke, I swear to fucking God, new girl-"

But he was cut off by a loud cracking noise. _T__he boat was splitting in half_. People that were on deck were still screaming as they ran around and tried to get off, but the front half exploded before they could. Luckily, all ten of them were swimming away before the back half could catch fire and sink. Caroline swam as if her life depended on it, because, really, it did. She knew the suction that the back half had created in her vision, and she wasn't in a hurry to feel that again. But when she looked back, she saw one person still way too close to the boat. Juliet was watching the back half sink. "JULIET! GET AWAY FROM THERE!" but it was too late, even as Juliet turned to look at her, the half-boat started to sink, pulling Juliet down with it.

"JULIET!!!" Caroline screamed. She was about to start swimming back, but Steph grabbed her. "She's gone! She's gone! You can't do anything!" Steph was sobbing, too, and acting vaguely nice for once. "No, no, we need to go back! If someone helps, we can... we can g-get her!"

"No, we can't!" now it was Matt yelling, "We need to get to shore! Sam looks like he's about to pass out!" Caroline could've cared less, she still wanted to get back and help Juliet, but now someone was holding her back and pulling her towards the shore. Caroline fought for a minute, but she was completely exhausted. Eventually, she gave in to the person who was pulling on her, and just let herself lay there and cry.

_This isn't happening. It's just a dream. A bad, bad dream!_ She went over this mantra all the way to the shore, all the way to the mini-Coast Guard office they had a mile away from the dock, and all the way to the police station.

But she had yet to believe it.


End file.
